Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a power module such as a power semiconductor device and to a method for manufacturing the same.
Description of the Background Art
Power modules including high-voltage integrated circuits (HVICs), low-voltage integrated circuits (LVICs), power transistors, free wheeling diodes (FWDis), and frames on which they are mounted have been developed as power modules of power semiconductor devices (for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-189632).
In recent times, the price competition is increasingly competitive in the power module market, requiring further cost-reduction and miniaturization.
The frames are designed side by side in a single row (for example, in a single horizontal row) to be compatible with the variety of the package sizes of the power modules in addition to the manufacturing constraints, such as the transmission lanes of the frames of the power modules and the operating range in the die bonders and the molding devices. Consequently, the production amount of the power modules is limited in the method for designing the conventional frames in which the number of frames producible from one metal plate is determined by the package size.